First world war | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/first-world-war
Latest news and features from theguardian.com, the world's leading liberal voiceen-gbGuardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2018Tue, 14 Aug 2018 23:03:09 GMT2018-08-14T23:03:09Zen-gbGuardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2018The Guardianhttps://assets.guim.co.uk/images/guardian-logo-rss.c45beb1bafa34b347ac333af2e6fe23f.pnghttps://www.theguardian.com
First world war: For the Fallen, a poem by Laurence Binyonhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/for-the-fallen-laurence-binyon
<p>With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,<br>England mourns for her dead across the sea.<br>Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of spirit,<br>Fallen in the cause of the free.</p><p>Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal<br>Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.<br>There is music in the midst of desolation<br>And a glory that shines upon our tears.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/for-the-fallen-laurence-binyon">Continue reading...</a>First world warBooksPoetryOriginal writingFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/for-the-fallen-laurence-binyonLaurence Binyon2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Michael Burleigh on the shameful legacy of the 'great war'https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-legacy-aftermath
When peace finally returned to Europe, politicians vowed to do all they could to avoid a repeat of the catastrophe. They failed, says Michael Burleigh<p>As the last first world war veterans die, it becomes an event caught in snatches of grainy black-and-white film footage whose speed is unnaturally quick, or sepia photos of combatants. Or there are works of art that range from the elemental and spiritual Miserere cycle of Georges Rouault, to those that coldly capture the physical damage, as in the hyper-realist paintings of Otto Dix - a man who revelled in the bloody experience of combat.</p><p>A significant number of artists who fought in the war did not survive the experience, as was the fate of the painter Franz Marc or sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, whose distraught wife Sophie died a decade later. For mass death is surely the overriding legacy of that conflict, the grim backdrop to the art deco foyers, glistening Swedish glass, bobbed flappers and frenetic jiving of the roaring 20s. </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-legacy-aftermath">Continue reading...</a>First world warFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-legacy-aftermathPhotograph: CorbisBenito Mussolini and four of his Generals, march on Rome, supported by their fascist troops. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CorbisPhotograph: CorbisBenito Mussolini and four of his Generals, march on Rome, supported by their fascist troops. Photograph: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CorbisMichael Burleigh2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: The Manchester Guardian on the situation in rebuilt Germany in 1939https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-germany-1939
<p>Tomorrow - the 25th anniversary of the start of the world war - is being celebrated in Germany wherever there are troops as a holiday. Military buildings, barracks and warships will be flagged. Special parades of all branches of the services are to be held all over the country, and in most large towns and cities military bands will play during the day and at night tattoos will be sounded at all military bases.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-germany-1939">Continue reading...</a>First world warFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-germany-1939Photograph: CorbisHitler saluting a military parade. Photograph: CorbisPhotograph: CorbisHitler saluting a military parade. Photograph: CorbisGuardian Staff2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Nurse Vera Brittain on the return home of her dead fiance's kithttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-vera-brittain
<p><strong>Vera Brittain's fiance Roland Leighton had been expected home on leave just after Christmas 1915. He died on December 23 of wounds received during a night-time wire inspection a day earlier. This is an extract from a letter written by Vera to her brother Edward on January 14 1916 from the London hospital where she was working as a nurse. She had travelled to Brighton to visit Roland's family ...</strong></p><p>I arrived at a very opportune, though very awful, moment. All Roland's things had just been sent back from the front through Cox's; they had just opened them and they were all lying on the floor. I had no idea before of the after-results of an officer's death, or what the returned kit, of which so much has been written in the papers, really meant. It was terrible. Mrs Leighton and Clare were both crying as bitterly as on the day we heard of his death, and Mr Leighton with his usual instinct was taking all the things everybody else wanted and putting them where nobody could ever find them. (His doings always seem to me to supply the slight element of humour which makes tragedy so much more tragic.)</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-vera-brittain">Continue reading...</a>First world warFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-vera-brittainPhotograph: CorbisChildren welcome German soldiers returning after the Armistice, 1918. Between 8.5 and 9 million servicemen and women from all warring nations didn't make it home. Photograph: CorbisPhotograph: CorbisChildren welcome German soldiers returning after the Armistice, 1918. Between 8.5 and 9 million servicemen and women from all warring nations didn't make it home. Photograph: CorbisVera Brittain2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: 'A shabby epidemic of spite' - CE Montague's account of his disenchantment with the warhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-ce-montague-disenchantment
<p>Men wearying in trenches used to tell one another sometimes what they fancied the end of the war would be like. Each had his particular favourite vision. Some morning the captain would come down the trench at "stand-to" and try to speak as if it were nothing. "All right, men," he would say, "you can go across and shake hands." Or the first thing we should hear would be some jubilant peal ... from the nearest standing church. But the commonest vision was that of marching down a road to a wide, shining river. Once more the longing of a multitude struggling slowly across a venomous wilderness fixed itself on the first glimpse of a Jordan beyond; for most men the Rhine was the physical goal of effort, the term of endurance, the symbol of all attainment and rest.</p><p>To win what your youth had desired, and find the taste of it gone, is said to be one of the standard pains of old age. With a kind of blank space in their minds where the joy of fulfilment ought to have been, two British privates of 1914, now captains attached to the staff, emerged from the narrow and crowded High Street of Cologne on December 7 1918, crossed the cathedral square, and gained their first sight of the Rhine. As they stood on the Hohenzollern bridge and looked at the mighty breadth of rushing stream, each of them gave his heart leave to leap up if it would and if it could. Were they not putting their lips to the first glass of the sparkling vintage of victory? Neither of them said anything then. The heart that knoweth its own bitterness need not always avow it straight off.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-ce-montague-disenchantment">Continue reading...</a>First world warFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-ce-montague-disenchantmentPhotograph: GuardianThe new frontiers of Germany (the shaded areas are relinquished territory) as illustrated in the Manchester Guardian, May 8 1919Photograph: GuardianThe new frontiers of Germany (the shaded areas are relinquished territory) as illustrated in the Manchester Guardian, May 8 1919CE Montague2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Extract from Woodrow Wilson's speech to the American Senate on January 22 1917https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/woodrow-wilson-senate-address-1917
Woodrow Wilson's Senate address, 1917<p>In every discussion of the peace that must end this war, it is taken for granted this peace must be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man, must take that for granted.</p><p>The present war must first be ended; but we owe it to candour to say that, so far as our participation in guarantees of future peace is concerned, it makes a great deal of difference in what way and upon what terms it is ended. The treaties and agreements which bring it to an end must embody terms which will create a peace that is worth guaranteeing and preserving, a peace that will win the approval of mankind, not merely a peace that will serve the several interests and immediate aims of the nations engaged.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/woodrow-wilson-senate-address-1917">Continue reading...</a>First world warFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/woodrow-wilson-senate-address-1917Photograph: CorbisWoodrow Wilson making a speech. Photograph: CorbisPhotograph: CorbisWoodrow Wilson making a speech. Photograph: CorbisGuardian Staff2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: High Wood, a poem by Philip Johnstonehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/high-wood-philip-johnstone
<p>Ladies and gentlemen, this is High Wood, <br>Called by the French, Bois des Fourneaux, <br>The famous spot which in Nineteen-Sixteen, <br>July, August and September was the scene <br>Of long and bitterly contested strife, <br>By reason of its High commanding site. <br>Observe the effect of shell-fire in the trees <br>Standing and fallen; here is wire; this trench <br>For months inhabited, twelve times changed hands; <br>(They soon fall in), used later as a grave. <br>It has been said on good authority <br>That in the fighting for this patch of wood <br>Were killed somewhere above eight thousand men, <br>Of whom the greater part were buried here, <br>This mound on which you stand being... <br> Madame, please, <br>You are requested kindly not to touch <br>Or take away the Company's property <br>As souvenirs; you'll find we have on sale <br>A large variety, all guaranteed. <br>As I was saying, all is as it was, <br>This is an unknown British officer, <br>The tunic having lately rotted off. <br>Please follow me - this way ... <br> the path, sir, please<br>The ground which was secured at great expense <br>The Company keeps absolutely untouched, <br>And in that dug-out (genuine) we provide <br>Refreshments at a reasonable rate. <br>You are requested not to leave about <br>Paper, or ginger-beer bottles, or orange-peel, <br>There are waste-paper-baskets at the gate. </p><p>• Philip Johnstone appears to have been a pseudonym, and little is known about the author of this prophetic poem, which was written in 1918.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/high-wood-philip-johnstone">Continue reading...</a>First world warBooksPoetryOriginal writingFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/high-wood-philip-johnstonePhilip Johnstone2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Aftermath, a poem by Siegfried Sassoonhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/aftermath-siegfried-sassoon
<p>This article has been removed as our copyright has expired. </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/aftermath-siegfried-sassoon">Continue reading...</a>Siegfried SassoonFirst world warBooksPoetryOriginal writingFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/aftermath-siegfried-sassoonPhotograph: David Levene/GuardianA carpet of poppy wreaths at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. Photograph: David LevenePhotograph: David Levene/GuardianA carpet of poppy wreaths at the Cenotaph in Whitehall, London. Photograph: David LeveneSiegfried Sassoon2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: A 1918 Guardian editorial on the end of the conflicthttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-armistice-end
<p><strong>Guardian Editorial</strong></p><p>The war is over, and in a million households fathers and mothers, wives and sisters, will breathe freely, relieved at length of all dread of that curt message which has shattered the hope and joy of so many. The war is over. The drama is played out.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-armistice-end">Continue reading...</a>First world warFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-armistice-endPhotograph: GettyCrowds celebrating the signing of the Armistice at the end of the first world war. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Hulton ArchivePhotograph: GettyCrowds celebrating the signing of the Armistice at the end of the first world war. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Hulton ArchiveGuardian Staff2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Manchester Guardian report on the German surrenderhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-armistice-german-surrender
Shattered German army on point of surrender<p>News came to us last night over the wires that Germany was sending plenipotentiaries to ask for terms of armistice from the Allied supreme commander, Marshal Foch. And those men were coming over under a white flag knowing, through President Wilson, what those terms are and what surrender they will have to make of all their pride.</p><p>The enemy are now well on the other side of the Sambre to the east of the forest of Mormal and are fighting about Bavai. Yesterday evening heavy counter-attacks were repulsed with grave losses to the Germans. It is a general retirement on a wide front by exhausted men, whose divisions and battalions have been shattered so that only weak remnants can be gathered for this last show of resistance.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-armistice-german-surrender">Continue reading...</a>First world warFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-armistice-german-surrenderPhotograph: CorbisBritish officers celebrate at captured German canteen. Photograph: Bettmann/CorbisPhotograph: CorbisBritish officers celebrate at captured German canteen. Photograph: Bettmann/CorbisGuardian Staff2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: The Next War, a poem by Osbert Sitwellhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/the-next-war-osbert-sitwell
<p>This article has been removed as our copyright has expired. </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/the-next-war-osbert-sitwell">Continue reading...</a>First world warBooksPoetryOriginal writingFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/the-next-war-osbert-sitwellOsbert Sitwell2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: How the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were presentedhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-treaty-versailles
How the terms were presented<p>The first step in the final stage of the establishment of an enduring peace was taken this afternoon in the Trianon Palace hotel at Versailles. For the first time Allied and enemy plenipotentiaries were face to face; those who had the privilege of witnessing the memorable scene could not avoid associating the proceedings in the dining hall of the palace with those of a court of justice. </p><p>Round the room sat representatives of an outraged world. The German plenipotentiaries facing them occupied seats at a little table at the bottom of the hall, placed there in the manner of those called upon to answer an indictment.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-treaty-versailles">Continue reading...</a>First world warFri, 14 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/14/first-world-war-treaty-versaillesPhotograph: CorbisAllied leaders at Versailles. Photograph: CorbisPhotograph: CorbisAllied leaders at Versailles. Photograph: CorbisGuardian Staff2008-11-14T00:01:00ZFirst world war: 'Gassed', by John Singer Sargenthttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/gassed-john-singer-sargent
<p>In 1918, the British Ministry of Information commissioned the American painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) to contribute a large-scale work to a planned Hall of Remembrance commemorating Anglo-American cooperation. Travelling to the front in July 1918, Sargent witnessed the harrowing aftermath of mustard gas attacks, which became the subject of this new work, Gassed - a six-metre-long tableau depicting a procession of wounded men stumbling, blindfolded, towards a dressing station.</p><p>While this painting, completed in 1919, is not representative of the illustrious portraitist's oeuvre, it has become widely recognised as an embodiment of the pain of war in a strangely serene and dignified manner. Virginia Woolf, in her essay The Fleeting Portrait, wrote of Gassed that it "at last pricked some nerve of protest, or perhaps of humanity". It now hangs in the Imperial War Museum in London.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/gassed-john-singer-sargent">Continue reading...</a>First world warArtArt and designCultureThu, 13 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/gassed-john-singer-sargentPhotograph: AlamyGassed by John Singer Sargent, 1918-1919. Photograph: AlamyPhotograph: AlamyGassed by John Singer Sargent, 1918-1919. Photograph: AlamyGuardian Staff2008-11-13T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Horrors at dawn - an extract from Henri Barbusse's Le Feu (Under Fire)https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/barbusse-feu-under-fire
<p>We are waiting for daylight in the place where we sank to the ground. Sinister and slow it comes, chilling and dismal, and expands upon the livid landscape.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/barbusse-feu-under-fire">Continue reading...</a>First world warArt and designCultureArtBooksOriginal writingThu, 13 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/barbusse-feu-under-firePhotograph: Imperial War MuseumThe Menin Road - Paul Nash. Photograph: Imperial War MuseumPhotograph: Imperial War MuseumThe Menin Road - Paul Nash. Photograph: Imperial War MuseumHenri Barbusse2008-11-13T00:01:00ZFirst world war: The manifesto of Futurismhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/first-world-war-futurism
<p><strong>1</strong> We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.</p><p><strong>2</strong> The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/first-world-war-futurism">Continue reading...</a>First world warArtArt and designCultureThu, 13 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/first-world-war-futurismPhotograph: AlamyThe Card Players - Fernand Leger 1917. Photograph: AlamyPhotograph: AlamyThe Card Players - Fernand Leger 1917. Photograph: AlamyFT Marinetti2008-11-13T00:01:00ZFirst world war: 'Recalling War', by Robert Graveshttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/13/robert-graves-recalling-war-poem
<p>Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean,<br>The track aches only when the rain reminds.<br>The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood,<br>The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm.<br>The blinded man sees with his ears and hands<br>As much or more than once with both his eyes.<br>Their war was fought these 20 years ago<br>And now assumes the nature-look of time,<br>As when the morning traveller turns and views<br>His wild night-stumbling carved into a hill.</p><p>What, then, was war? No mere discord of flags<br>But an infection of the common sky<br>That sagged ominously upon the earth<br>Even when the season was the airiest May.<br>Down pressed the sky, and we, oppressed, thrust out<br>Boastful tongue, clenched fist and valiant yard.<br>Natural infirmities were out of mode,<br>For Death was young again; patron alone<br>Of healthy dying, premature fate-spasm.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/13/robert-graves-recalling-war-poem">Continue reading...</a>Original writingPoetryBooksCultureFirst world warRobert GravesThu, 13 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/13/robert-graves-recalling-war-poemRobert Graves2008-11-13T00:01:00ZFirst world war: 'War Books', by Ivor Gurneyhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/13/ivor-gurney-war-poems
<p>What did they expect of our toil and extreme<br>Hunger - the perfect drawing of a heart's dream?<br>Did they look for a book of wrought art's perfection,<br>Who promised no reading, nor praise, nor publication?<br>Out of the heart's sickness the spirit wrote<br>For delight, or to escape hunger, or of war's worst anger,<br>When the guns died to silence and men would gather sense<br>Somehow together, and find this was life indeed,<br>And praise another's nobleness, or to Cotswold get hence.<br>There we wrote - Corbie Ridge, or in Gonnehem at rest,<br>Or Fauquissart - our world's death songs, ever the best.<br>One made sorrow's praise passing the church where silence<br>Opened for the long quivering strokes of the bell -<br>Another wrote all soldiers' praise, and of France and night's stars,<br>Served his guns, got immortality, and died well.<br>But Ypres played another trick with its danger on me,<br>Kept still the needing and loving-of-action body,<br>Gave no candles, and nearly killed me twice as well,<br>And no souvenirs, though I risked my life in the stuck tanks.<br>Yet there was praise of Ypres, love came sweet in hospital,<br>And old Flanders went under to long ages of plays' thought in my pages.</p><p>• This poem was written from 1922-25</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/13/ivor-gurney-war-poems">Continue reading...</a>Original writingPoetryBooksFirst world warCultureThu, 13 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/13/ivor-gurney-war-poemsIvor Gurney2008-11-13T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Antwerp by Ford Madox Fordhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/ford-madox-ford-antwerp
<p>This article was taken down because the web rights have expired.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/ford-madox-ford-antwerp">Continue reading...</a>First world warPoetryOriginal writingBooksCultureFord Madox FordThu, 13 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/ford-madox-ford-antwerpFord Madox Ford2008-11-13T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Ana Carden-Coyne on the impact of the war on artists and writershttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/first-world-war-artists-writers-modernism
The first world war is seen as a modernist watershed, the moment when artists lost faith in narrative and embraced nihilism and fragmentation. Yet the truth is far more complicated, writes Ana Carden-Coyne<p>Art and literature paint the first world war as shockingly brutal and disillusioning. Many artists and writers were involved in the war as soldiers, medics and auxiliary personnel. They witnessed suffering, narrated and visualised modern, industrial violence. Some were injured physically or psychologically, and when convalescing in rehabilitation institutions drew on these experiences as inspiration for some of their best work.</p><p>In 1914, modernism - an avant-garde claim to originality, autonomy and rupture - dominated debates about art, literature and music. Violent experiment was one radical desire that made the prospect of war seem thrilling, a fulfilment of the theory that to build a new world the old one had to be demolished. War would be cleansing, purifying the corruption of bourgeois taste. The Italian poet FT Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto (1909) declared that no masterpieces were created without aggression; Russian futurist poet Vladimir Maiakovskii called for the destruction of all culture; and the expressionists yearned for art to be swept aside by life. Masculine fortitude would pulsate with the dynamic energy of war machines. Alongside radicalism, war also excited patriotism and romanticism. Chivalric language and the deeds of heroic warriors - expressed by Rupert Brooke's self-sacrifice in "a foreign field / That is for ever England" - were ideals shared across nations.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/first-world-war-artists-writers-modernism">Continue reading...</a>First world warCultureArtArt and designThu, 13 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/first-world-war-artists-writers-modernismPhotograph: GuardianWalter Bayes: The Underworld, 1918. Photograph: Imperial War Museum/The Art ArchivePhotograph: GuardianWalter Bayes: The Underworld, 1918. Photograph: Imperial War Museum/The Art ArchiveAna Carden-Coyne2008-11-13T00:01:00ZFirst world war: Mental Cases by Wilfred Owenhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/mental-cases-wilfred-owen
<p>Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?<br>Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,<br>Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,<br>Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked?<br>Stroke on stroke of pain, - but what slow panic,<br>Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?<br>Ever from their hair and through their hand palms<br>Misery swelters. Surely we have perished<br>Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?</p><p>- These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.<br>Memory fingers in their hair of murders,<br>Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.<br>Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,<br>Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.<br>Always they must see these things and hear them,<br>Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,<br>Carnage incomparable, and human squander<br>Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/mental-cases-wilfred-owen">Continue reading...</a>First world warPoetryOriginal writingBooksCultureThu, 13 Nov 2008 00:01:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/13/mental-cases-wilfred-owenWilfred Owen2008-11-13T00:01:00Z